By Carol Spieckerman, newmarketbuilders / Bentonville

“Discipline is doing what you hate to do but doing it like you love it.” – Mike Tyson

I agree with Mr. Tyson.

As a retail consultant and mentor to executives across many industries, I often work with businesses facing big, messy problems — challenges that defy definition and change constantly. In my ten years of process and organizational onion-peeling, lack of passion has never been a root cause of such challenges; lack of discipline, on the other hand, has been consistent in both the not-for-profit and private sector.

Remember, passion doesn’t always equal expertise, and you can possess expertise in something that is not your passion. In a complex and demanding business environment, the ability to push beyond your passions and into multiple disciplines will provide one of the greater sources for enhancing your personal and professional value.

Follow Discipline – here are five why’s:

1. Passion and preference narrow your perspective – When you confuse “like to do” with “need to do,” you often forfeit opportunities. I worked with an executive who liked playing golf so much that he only nurtured relationships with employees and clients who also liked to hit the links. He developed a morale-killing reputation for favoritism, jeopardized his company’s viability with prospects who couldn’t care less about golf, and alienated clients that had policies against extracurricular activities with customers. After creating a discipline that based relationships on business and leadership opportunities rather than self-interest, he would email me to share an interesting tidbit about someone – “Did you know that Sara races motorcycles?” or “Steve plays guitar in a rock band!” His new-found discipline opened up opportunities that his singular passion had kept closed.

2. Passion can prolong problems – Many entrepreneurs have stayed with ventures, concepts, marketing campaigns, product launches—even people—long after it was prudent because they were “passionate” about them. Disciplines developed around goal-setting, benchmarking and feedback solicitation keep passion-driven excess in check. This may mean cutting your losses, as it did with one Fortune 500 client: They were passionate about launching a new product line aimed at the teen market, yet when sales didn’t happen within three months of launch, they closed down the entire division to the tune of millions of dollars. This decision freed up resources that reinvented an existing product line, one that went on to become a bestseller.

3. Others may not share your passion (and that’s a good thing!) - You run the risk of alienating others when you expect them to have the same degree of passion you do. Unbridled passion can be heady stuff, and for those who aren’t feeling it, downright dispiriting! Curbing your enthusiasm and allowing others to be themselves, and do what they do best, can be one of the more rewarding disciplines to practice. I’ve driven millions of dollars in sales for products and services that other people are passionate about. I don’t need to be passionate about them because my clients already are; they come to me for discipline around sales, marketing, and professional development processes.

4. Passion overlooks mediocrity – One company owner knew his industry backwards and forwards, and was truly passionate about the business; however, he didn’t have a clue about computers beyond checking email. He considered anyone who could enter numbers onto a spreadsheet a “whiz,” even though our organizational assessment revealed that his analytical team was woefully behind industry standards, and that he was being denied growth opportunities as a result.

5. Passion strengthens imbalance – Some technology companies are so passionate about their industry that they completely ignore the importance of marketing and sales. They rationalize that features, configurations and specs will sell their products. That’s a problem at a time when hot products and services stay hot for shorter and shorter periods of time. Creating a discipline around marketing and sales actually improves products because connections to both customers and markets deepen.

For me, passion and discipline have become one in the same. Had I stuck with my early passions, I would not be running a successful consulting firm. I would never have become a public speaker and author, and I sure wouldn’t have forged so many rewarding friendships and business relationships.

As choreographer Twyla Tharp so elegantly stated, “You can’t allow yourself to get comfortable with what you’re comfortable with, because then that’s all you’ll want to do.”

As president of Bentonville-based newmarketbuilders, Carol Spieckerman is a marketing, sales and professional development specialist. She serves as a strategic advisor to product and service companies, and is a noted retail authority, author, trainer and speaker. Email Carol at carol@newmarketbuilders.com or follow her at www.twitter.com/retailxpert